EMMA ALBERICI: Governments and humanitarian groups are ramping up efforts to get aid to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Thousands of people are in desperate need of food and clean water, with the risk of survivors contracting infectious diseases increasing hourly. Aid groups say a key priority now is collecting the many bodies strewn throughout the devastation.SHAUN HASSET, REPORTER: The international response to typhoon Haiyan has taken another step up. The United States is sending navy ships to the Philippines and is diverting the aircraft carrier USS 'George Washington' from Hong Kong. Britain is also sending a destroyer.Japan has already sent a disaster relief team while a group of Australian medics will be leaving tomorrow. Humanitarian groups are trying to get food and water to the worst affected areas.SEBASTIAN RHODES STAMPA, UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS: The priorities are very clear, the priorities are food, people need access to food and they need it now and not just in Tacloban city but outside. They need water, clean water to drink and water to wash in. They need sanitation and hygiene kits because there's extremely dirty environment and those carrying injuries already are going to get sick very soon.SHAUN HASSET: But the logistics are proving difficult. Only a small amount of aid has trickled through to the worst hit area, Tacloban. There is panic at the city's airport where the army is struggling to control desperate survivors eager to get out.TYPHOON SURVIOR: We're so very hungry and thirsty. That's why we are here. If you have water or food there, maybe you can give us.SHAUN HASSET: The aid situation in neighbouring Samar province is even worse. The ABC's Zoe Daniel was the first journalist to make it into the province. While the road to Samar is now passable, she says virtually no aid has made it there so far. The death toll in the province is expected to be high. Probably in the thousands. More bodies are being collected by residents but they're still everywhere amid the debris.JOHN GING, UN DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: On this occasion we don't need very much assessment. We know precisely what the needs are when you look at the scale of the devastation and you're absolutely right, the first priority of response teams once they were able to navigate their way in to these areas is to mobilise the burying of dead bodies.ALFRED ROMUALDEZ, TACLOBAN MAYOR (TRANSLATION): We're having difficulties finding the corpses because you can't easily see them since they are all under the debris. If there's a bad smell emanating that's the only way we can find the corpses.SHAUN HASSET: The scale of the devastation has moved the Philippines climate change commissioner to tears at UN talks in Poland. He urged delegates to take swift action on climate change.YEB SANO, PHILIPPINES CLIMATE CHANGE COMMISSIONER: I speak for my delegation but I speak for the countless people who will no longer be able to speak for themselves after perishing from the storm. I speak also for those who have an orphaned by the storm. I speak for those, the people now racing against time to save survivors and alleviate the suffering of the people affected. We can take drastic action now to ensure we prevent a future where super typhoons become a way of life.SHAUN HASSET: Representatives from nearly 200 countries are in Warsaw to lay the ground work for a new pact on tackling global warming.